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Pre-Installed Linux Tops Dell Customer Requests
dhart writes "Within only a few days of Dell opening a new customer feedback website, they discovered that the feature most requested (by an almost 2-to-1 margin!) is an option on all new Dell PCs: pre-installed Linux. (And the number 3 request is pre-installed Open Office.) I believe they'll have a harder time now with the tired old mantra 'There's no customer demand for Linux.'"
Strangely, the #2 option was pre-installed pictures of Natalie Portman.
It's not so much that there isn't customer demand for LINUX, it's that there isn't a whole lot of customer demand for individual Linux flavors A, B, C, D, E, F, G, etc. It's too much of a PITA to worry about qualifying all that different hardware with all the different distros and then worrying about dealing with Red Hat, Novell and all the different suppliers of what's basically a free OS.
Now, if they had a service like "I'll send you the Linux distro I want, please preinstall it on the next 500 computers you ship me," that could be big.
Just because a bunch of people on a web board request something, doesn't mean that it's a reflection of what people who are actually going to pay cash money want. It reflects that there's a strong desire for dell to preload linux and OpenOffice.org; but it's not necessarily a given that the people who are making that request are willing to shell out the bucks to buy a dell (especially considering the fact that most people who buy linux computers buy servers, and any desktop user who is competent enough to use Linux isn't going to settle for a prefab box, they're going to build theirs themselves).
I think preinstalled OpenOffice would do more to promote Open Source and MS Alternatives than anything else. Linux is still unsuitable for casual users with other casual users as friends. For an average user wanting to run business apps or games, Linux/Wine/QEMU just isn't as friendly nor has the "ask your neighbor" tech support that you'd get running Windows.
With a default OO install, there will be an instant install base of ODF. It'll do wonders for adoption of the format. Other manufacturers might even follow Dell, seeing how Dell can add functional software with minimal cost, leading to even more adoption. Business users might purchase MS Office anyway, but the home users and small businesses needing basic office needs would benefit in a real way without spending more money.
So please, vote for OO.o. Having Dell install linux by default might be really cool, but voting for OO.o would help both Open Source awareness and adoption.
In Soviet Russia, articles before post read *you*!
I don't think I would want Dell, or anyone else, doing the install for me, since I want to handle partitioning and package selection myself. It would be nice if each model said something like "certified that all hardware works with Linux Distros X, Y, and Z out of the box" so that I wouldn't have to hunt that info down myself.
Not to feed the trolls, but here goes anyways... Have you actually called their support? Or, a better question - are these actual servers (PowerEdge) or desktops standing in as servers? I've called them many times, for servers that only cost $1k to ones over $6k. Every time I've gotten an American English speaking rep from Texas. Yes, even on Christmas morning and the machine's technically out of warranty. Cheap desktops get you cheap support. Real servers get you real support. You get what you pay for.
What if I want a BSD?
If you want a Blue Screen of Death, then just get one of their Windows options.
It's a Digg-style ranking site. And items one and three were submitted by the same user (dhart). And now he submits a link to Slashdot to boost the ratings farther.
He calls this an honest representation of customer demand?! When I got linked to by Slashdot, I got 28,000 hits. And that was a Sunday morning. Say bye-bye to any sort of reasonable cross-section of Dell users.
I love Linux, and haven't run anything But Linux on my personal systems since 2001, but this is very nearly astroturfing. At the very least, it'll strongly bias the demographic on ideastorm.
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You think? I'm not sure anymore. Just a few weeks ago Michael Dell stood up with Vint Cerf and admitted 1 in 4 M$ computers is part of a botnet. Now his company is publicizing customer demand for Linux. If he was interested in toeing the M$ party line, he would have suppressed the results. The odds are Dell is moving away from being a M$ vassal.
2007 is the year of Linux. Vista sucks, is not selling and the revolt is on. It's about time!
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
emacs is and excellent OS, it just needs a good text editor.
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
Do you know any Filipinos, and more importantly, do you speak English with them on a regular basis?
I know a teenage Filipina girl. Although she does have a noticable accent, her English is impeccable and easily understood. She's not a special case, this is normal for Filipinos. The Phillippines exhibit a situation of diglossia in which English is used for educational and government as well as other formal purposes. What this means is that everything from government proceedings to television reporting is conducted in the English language. In addition, English is the only language spoken in many schools, and textbooks are exclusively written in the language. According to the Filipina I know, any use of her local language in her school incurs a fine.
Thus, Filipinos, especially educated ones, can be expected to have a good command of English. This, coupled with the fact that their accent is quite easily understandable, would make them, on average and from a linguistic point of view, much better technical support representatives than their Indian counterparts.
Le français vous intéresse?
I won't tell you how to mod the parent, but I can throw my 2 cent's worth of experience in.
It is 100% true that English isn't a second language in the Philippines, it's a primary language. I work in a 24x7 datacenter, and a year or so ago, a new support center was opened in the Philippines to handle our night shift. I thought they were going to let a bunch of people go, but it turned out, they were expanding our operations, not replacing them. (Thank goodness!)
I was very skeptical that this would work. I had many of the same fears. Would we be able to understand their accent? Would they be undertrained an incompetent? Would there be any culture clashes?
The answers, to my surprise, were: They have no discernible accent—none. They're very smart and easily keep up with our local folks, and have often gone far above and beyond the call of duty to help us out. And yes, they are very familiar with our culture and ways of doing things. In fact, a nice bonus about the Filipino support center is that a lot of our night shift calls were coming from Asia-Pacific countries (since, duh, they were open at that time of night), and a lot of those clients feel much more comfortable dealing with our Filipino support center than our American night shift folks.
By now, you're probably thinking, "Right, you're just a management goober," but I assure you, I'm not. In fact, I was certain that I was going to lose my job due to Filipino outsourcing, but that never happened, since we weren't really outsourcing. And after working with them for a while at our shift turnover and seeing the quality of the work they did for us, I can honestly say that hiring our Filipino friends has turned out to be one of the few times management actually did something right at my company, and it's been a win-win situation for everyone.
I'm not saying that every Filipino person is smart and capable and a perfect joy to work with. Just like dealing with all people, your mileage may vary. But I can say that anyone who thinks that good customer service can't be provided by support centers in the Philippines is either stupid or doesn't know enough Filipino people, if any at all.
There's a dude in India who's probably really pissed because every time he calls Dell for support on his server, he gets someone from Texas!
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They have no discernible accent--none.
:)
Well that maybe the case for an American listener. All the Filipinos I've met (only a handful to be honest) sounded to me like they had American accents
But just to agree with you, all of them had very good spoken english (if a little quiet).
and they're STILL not going to understand common pop-culture references
Do you call tech support lines to chat about American Idol or something? When I call, I want technical answers. So long as I can understand the other person, I don't care where they are or what cultural customs they follow.
(Yes, I understand that the Phillipines are an American protectorate so they could all be considered somewhat 'american' but you know what I meant)
The Philippines are not an American protectorate. The Philippines have been a completely sovereign nation since 1946. They were ceded from the Spanish to the United States in the Spanish-American War in 1898. That relationship lasted until WWII, when the Japanese took the islands. After WWII, the Philippines became a fully independent nation. The United States had military bases there until the early 1990s.
It is quite likely that you actually are being connected to their call center in Texas. Next time you call, ask to be transfered to somebody in India. It will be a lot easier for you to understand, especially if you ask the rep to drop his fake American accent.
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